Archive for Pocket Project

This week on The Pocket Project, we are looking at episode two of series one – The End of the World. What will The Doctor produce from his seemingly endless pockets this time? What will he use the Sonic Screwdriver for? Let’s find out.

The Pocket Project: The End of the World – 1.2

1. The Sonic Screwdriver – Used to: lower the window shields in the gallery they land in, open a few doors, mess with computers, and raise sun filters.

2. Slightly Psychic Paper – Used as an invitation to the event. The first appearance of this new favorite tool of The Doctor’s. Quite handy for crashing parties.

3. The Phone Thingy – With this item, and a bit of jiggery-pokery, Rose’s cell phone becomes the superphone. I imagine that it’s some sort of signal booster. Convenient that it fits in the phone perfectly.

In the Classic series of Doctor Who the Doctor was constantly being told to empty out his pockets. This was especially common in the Fourth Doctor era. When the Doctor would reluctantly comply with the order, the watcher would find any number of strange things that had been lurking in his pockets. If you have been watching the new series, you have undoubtedly noticed that the Doctor still pulls all sorts of things out of his seemingly bottomless pockets. It’s good to know that some things never change. The Doctor likes to be prepared, it would seem, no matter the face that he is wearing at the time.

And this brings me to The Pocket Project. One of the things that I will be doing during our Doctor Who drought is going back through the new series episodes and keeping track of the items our Doctor produces from the depths of his pockets. (Yes, I like making lists. How could you tell?) Along the way, I will also be keeping track of what the Sonic Screwdriver is used for. I shall begin with series one, episode one – Rose.

The Pocket Project: Rose – 1.1

1. The Sonic Screwdriver – used to stop the lift so that the Autons couldn’t follow them, to follow the signal from the plastic arm, to cut off the signal animating the plastic arm, and to lock the back door of the restaurant containing the rampaging Plastic Mickey Body.

2. A Ruddy Great Bomb – used to blow up the relay device on the roof of Rose’s shop.

This week on The Pocket Project we are looking at episode five of Doctor Who series one – Boom Town. What will The Doctor produce from his seemingly endless pockets this time? What will he use the Sonic Screwdriver for? Let’s find out.

The Pocket Project: Boom Town – 1.11

1. Cell Phone – You have to wonder where he got it. He certainly never pulls it out of his pocket again.

2. Sonic Screwdriver – Used to reverse a teleport.

3. Breath Spray? – Something that looks like breath spray that is used to neutralize Blon’s poisoned breath.

Total Items: 3

Hey, now Jack is pulling things out of thin air, too! Do we even want to know where those handcuff bracelet things were hiding? For all that this is not my favorite of episodes, it does have some interesting moments. “Only a killer would know that” for example. The Doctor first recognizes the constant reappearance of “Bad Wolf.” And, of course, the thing that we don’t find out for a couple of years: This adventure is directly responsible for Torchwood’s invisible lift.

This week on The Pocket Project we are looking at episode ten of Doctor Who series one – The Doctor Dances. What will The Doctor produce from his seemingly endless pockets this time? What will he use the Sonic Screwdriver for? Let’s find out.

The Pocket Project: The Doctor Dances – 1.10

1. A Banana – Which we don’t actually see until a bit later, as he’s swapped for…

I always wonder how long that Banana had been in The Doctor’s pocket. Do the pockets keep things in stasis? The banana looked nice and ripe. We had our first encounter with Jack’s Squareness Gun. Amusing exchange on the topic of Sonic items there in the hall, eh? And I will always love the “Go to your room” bit. Along with the “Know the feeling” bit in the previous episode, they remind you that The Doctor was once a father. I’ll bet he never thought it would come in handy in that sort of situation, though.

This week on The Pocket Project we are looking at episode nine of Doctor Who series one – The Empty Child. What will The Doctor produce from his seemingly endless pockets this time? What will he use the Sonic Screwdriver for? Let’s find out.

The Pocket Project: The Empty Child – 1.9

1. Psychic Paper – Dr. John Smith, Ministry of Asteroids.

2. The Sonic Screwdriver – Used to: unlock a door, intending to scan the randomly ringing telephone, open a padlock, and do a medical scan/used as a flashlight.

3. Binoculars – of a cool futuristic collapsible type.

Total Items: 3

Ah! The first appearance of Captain Jack Harkness. I should keep track of the stuff in his pockets, too, for all that they aren’t bigger on the inside. He has his own psychic paper and a remote that can do quite a bit. Add his wrist computer to the mix and…well, The Doctor has himself a bit of competition. Someone willing to give Rose a bit of “Spock.” I can’t wait to watch the other half of this two-parter again.

This week on The Pocket Project we are looking at episode seven of Doctor Who series one – Father’s Day. What will The Doctor produce from his seemingly endless pockets this time? What will he use the Sonic Screwdriver for? Let’s find out.

The Pocket Project: Father’s Day – 1.8

1. TARDIS Key – Used to: enter the TARDIS and attempt to bring the TARDIS back.

2. The Sonic Screwdriver – Used to: either lock a door or check how solid it is, hard to tell which, and charge a battery.

Total Items: 2

This episode always gets to me. It’s my favorite from series one, so this shouldn’t be all that surprising. I still love how they managed to create a father for Rose that really explained why she was so different from her mum. Even though The Doctor only used two items from his pocket in this episode, wasn’t it nice that the lowly TARDIS key had a chance to shine for once?

This week on The Pocket Project we are looking at episode seven of Doctor Who series one – The Long Game. What will The Doctor produce from his seemingly endless pockets this time? What will he use the Sonic Screwdriver for? Let’s find out.

The Pocket Project: The Long Game – 1.7

1. The Sonic Screwdriver – Used to: get money from a cash point, open the door to the mainframe, mess with the mainframe, Rose removes the Doctor’s manacles, and destroy Adam’s answering machine.

2. Psychic Paper – Used to: fool Suki and Cathica.

Total Items: 2

Only the usual things come out of the Doctor’s Pockets this time. I think this might be the first time that Rose has used the Screwdriver, or at least one of the first times. Knowing what comes later, I always wonder what happens to Cathica after this episode.

This week on The Pocket Project we are looking at episode six of Doctor Who series one – Dalek. What will The Doctor produce from his seemingly endless pockets this time? What will he use the Sonic Screwdriver for? Let’s find out.

The Pocket Project: Dalek – 1.6

1. The TARDIS Key – used to open the TARDIS at the very end of the episode.

Total Items: 1

Okay, I was wrong. This is the episode with the least amount of items appearing from the Doctor’s pockets. The Sonic Screwdriver didn’t appear even once! That’s got to be some kind of unique occurrence. One would think that he’d have pulled it out to use on the door to The Cage in order to escape the Dalek, but no. I suppose that The Doctor’s favorite tool didn’t become ubiquitous until series two of the new show. It felt like it was everywhere even in series one, but it looks like I was wrong about that. Interesting…

As of today, I have been married for seven years. How crazy is that? In the unlikely event that my husband is reading this (he loves Doctor Who, but isn’t too big on blogs, you see) I would just like to say: I’d like to renew your contract for at least another seven years. And now, back to our show…

This week on The Pocket Project we are looking at episode five of Doctor Who series one – World War Three. What will The Doctor produce from his seemingly endless pockets this time? What will he use the Sonic Screwdriver for? Let’s find out.

The Pocket Project: World War Three – 1.5

1. Sonic Screwdriver – Used to: quickly close the door of the lift they’ve back him up against, open the door to the cabinet room, threaten the Slitheen (he says that he could triplicate the flammability of the alcohol), search the cabinet room

2. Virus CD – Given to Mickey to put online, in order to destroy every mention of The Doctor.

Total Items: 2

This is quite possibly the smallest number of things that The Doctor has ever produced from his pocket during the course of an episode. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that this is part two of a two-parter. Who knows?

This week on The Pocket Project we are looking at episode four of Doctor Who series one – Aliens of London. What will The Doctor produce from his seemingly endless pockets this time? What will he use the Sonic Screwdriver for? Let’s find out.

The Pocket Project: Aliens of London – 1.4

1. TARDIS Key for Rose – Given to her as a promise that he won’t just go off and leave her behind. Later we discover that it glows when the TARDIS materializes.

2. The Doctor’s TARDIS Key – Used…to get in to the TARDIS.

3. Sonic Screwdriver – Used to: unlock a door (please note that shushing it doesn’t make it work more quietly) and work on the TARDIS.